Offering
by Salome Sensei
Summary: More Sesshomaru/adult Rin. Stand alone/one shot. Rin at 21 reflects on Sesshomaru's meaning in her life through reading haiku she has written him since age 9. A little romantic mood piece. Truly T rated--believe it or not!


© Salome Wilde, 2008

Author's Note: Can't seem to stop writing Sesshomaru/adult Rin! This little stand-alone piece was inspired by a desire to see if I could incorporate poetry into a story in a plausible and moving way. Also, I wanted to try out a present tense/first-person narrative. Just a little experiment that I hope works to create a sweet, romantic mood.

Explanation: Two readers have commented on this issue, so let me note it (though I hate to have to do this explaining thing as a writer; it means I've failed in the writing itself to make something clear...but, darn it, the way spacing works (hard returns) makes this confusing.  Anyhow, to make it clear: Rin is looking back through poetry she has written since age 9 and thinking about her mate, Sesshomaru, at age 21.

Offering

So tall, like an oak

No one else is as mighty

So strong, he saved me

--Rin, age 9

_When did I get so big that I could not fit in his lap? My long legs dangle across his firm, pale thigh. My warm back meets his cool, firm chest. My arms entwine about his neck to pull him down for a kiss. His thick, silver-white hair flows over me in a sensuous sheet as our lips meet. The pleasure in tipping my head back to receive the offering of his mouth invokes fleeting nostalgia for my youth, when he towered over me, literally and figuratively. Then as now Lord Sesshomaru is my hero, my champion. Yet now he is also my mate and my lover, and I am no longer a child._

He lets me follow

I watch his back as we go

Protect me always

--Rin, age 11

_Sesshomaru's demeanor has always matched his icy appearance and cool flesh. A daiyokai's love is not like that of a human's. I am all word and emotion; my mate is power and presence. When he is away and I call him to mind, I picture him standing, glorious and proud, at a cliff's edge. The wind whips his hair and the fur at his shoulder behind him. The force of nature meets his indomitable presence and bends. My Sesshomaru is invincible._

Hero and master

Let me walk in your shadow

I exist for you

--Rin, age 13

_He never pulled me into his lap as a child. And I must claim my place there now. Sesshomaru will never be one to display emotion with ease. I accept this and neither hope nor ask for him to be otherwise. But I have a place in his heart that makes me bold and determined. Though I am only a frail human, I have been able to bestow a gift to my yokai mate that no other could. I bring him love, and this has somehow kindled a desire within him for something beyond the pursuit of power. So, I do not worry that he sometimes accepts my gestures of affection with ambivalence or even rejects them. His hesitation is balanced by fascination and his reluctance with need._

Such beauty I see

I dare not call it by name

For it claims my heart.

--Rin, age 14

_Inadequate and imperfect, I know my place in his heart and soul. So, childlike and yet adult, I impose myself upon him. I nudge his arms apart and wedge my way into his lap, entwine my arms around him, offer my lips for his kiss. And today, I hold out the slender, tattered volume of haiku I have written for him, begun years before he claimed me as his mate. He will not want to read its expressions of devotion. That he kept me with him and that I obeyed and followed is already complete recognition for my Sesshomaru. Openly addressing what we have been and are to each other is unnecessary, excessive. But I am excessiveness personified to him, and yet he treasures me and I him. Yes, he will read it, this labor of love that I began while I was Jaken's young and impressionable pupil, learning to form the ornate kanji that would make me literate and hence less unworthy to serve. He will not smile or acknowledge the intimacy of the gesture, nor perhaps even truly understand it. Yet it will be another layer of connectedness between us, and that is all it need be._

Words tremble like leaves

Gather them into your arms

My heart is within

--Rin, age 21

-(never) end(ing)-


End file.
